The Myth of Bill Clinton as “The First Black President”

One of the world’s most famous writers, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, once described former President Bill Clinton as America’s first Black President.  In her eloquent defense of the President during the worst period of his presidency, in the October, 1998 New Yorker Magazine, Morrison said of Clinton

Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.

Here’s the whole article. The united and unflinching support of African-Americans during the McCarthy-era like investigation of Clinton saved his presidency. Read More

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